Earlier this week it was 113º in Los Angeles. It was also 103º, 107º, 98º and 91º on various other days throughout the week.

Like most stucco and Spanish tile residences built in the 1920’s, our place is not air conditioned, which means for a few days it reached 95º inside TSW HQ. It was (and continues to be) miserable. I don’t think I’ve had a fully formed thought since last Friday, and I’m pretty sure that last flicker of across my brain was, “Looks like it’s going to be hot next week. Better make sure we have lots of popsicles in the freezer.”

Because of the heat, I’ve only managed to half-write a few posts this week before abandoning them, telling myself, “Fuck. This. Too hot. Too many words. Laptop hot. Dozens of readers can do without words. Better to sleep on the tile bathroom floor with the dog.” (Sleeping on the bathroom floor, by the way, is a nice reminder of why you stopped drinking Zimas with shots of Chambord poured into them when you were nineteen.)

Why do I bring this up, other than as a lame excuse for the lack of posting this week? No, that’s it. I’m a wuss who cannot even type out my thoughts when it’s suffocatingly hot, while last week the Steelers were sent out onto 100º fields in their black home uniforms to run around in front of tens of thousands of fans, so I should just shut up and write something.

So let’s just assume that I wrote about the following topics and call it a day:

1) Defending Gisele Bundchen’s control over Tom Brady’s hair. (There’s even a small collage of my own husband’s hair over the years mocked up for the abandoned post, based on my own struggles to keep it from being shaved off.) Included in this post would have been a rant about Bill Simmons completely ludicrous assertion on PTI that Brady’s longer hair doesn’t play in Boston because real Boston guys get simple crew cuts and are plain old salt of the earth types that wouldn’t have such fancy ‘dos. That’s some serious GOOD WILL HUNTING psychological bullshit you’ve got going there, Simmons. I’ve known many people from Boston in my time, one of which was a male model early in his career. No one ever fucked with his long hair.

Aside of that, shouldn’t Boston salt of the earth types be happy that Brady is trying to make his wife — not even the super model part, but his actual wife — happy for a more pleasant marriage? Or in Simmons’ version of Boston, men are the boss of everything and womminz, they get what they get with their partners.

Silly and insulting.

2) It’s Steelers-Ravens hate week. I don’t like smack talk during a tough rivalry week, especially against the Ravens, so thankfully ChristmasApe/Tunsion over at DC Steeler Nation and Cotter over at OFTOT handled that for us. I don’t even really like talking about football during Ravens week, so again I turn to my fantasy football league members and turn you over to Cory at Three Rivers Blog to breakdown the match up.

3) espnW. Actually, I’ll probably have a lot more to say about espnW once we really know what it’s going to be about. Put a pin in that topic for now.

I also started writing this week’s Friday Football Foodie in dissertation format and going through the backlog of recipes I still need to post as a nod to this week’s most notable jersey-chaser, but then I just felt bad for everyone involved in that mess. UPDATE: Except for the part where she possibly gets a book deal. In that case, I feel really, really bad for everyone involved.

So on that note, WONTONS! I love fried wontons for Living Room-Gating — yes I am going to keep using those words all season until it catches on — with a bunch of people. Easy, quick, and they feed a ton of people. It took five big eaters to go through a tray this size during the All-Star Game this past summer.

Buffalo Chicken Fried Wontons and Cream Cheese Fried Wontons

You will need…

Food stuffs.

Buffalo Chicken style wontons:
2 cups shredded chicken (I usually just buy a roasted chicken at the grocery store for convenience sake. One good sized bird is about 2 cups or so of meat.)
3/4 cup Franks Red Hot Sauce Original
2-3 tablespoons butter
2-3 cloves of chopped garlic

If you’re only making one type of fried wonton, you’ll only need one package of wontons wrappers. If making both, about a pack and half. Available in almost every grocery store now, be sure you’re buying wonton wrappers and not larger egg roll wrappers.

Buffalo Chicken Dip chicken.

Melt the butter in a pan and lightly roast the garlic. Add the chicken and the Frank’s Hot Sauce and cook until well-coated. Set aside to cool slightly for easier handling.

Onion and cream cheese, not just for bagels.

Mince the onion and the cream cheese together, either in a bowl, blender or a food processor, and then spoon 1 generous teaspoon onto individual wonton wrappers.

Only looks messy. It’s not really messy.

With a little bit of water, seal together the edges of the filled wonton wrappers into a triangle and then fold over the sides.

Then either refrigerate all the wontons for at least an hour to help them stay together for frying, or freeze for later use.

Or use oil in a deep frying pan on a stove. Still heat the oil to 375º.

When ready to fry, heat up your oil in either an immersion fryer or in a heavy frying pan to 375º. As you know from previous, Friday Football Foodies, I generally fry in a pan, but sometimes a deep fryer is just easier to deal with in the kitchen. (Or when you feel bad about not using the nice wedding present given to you by a distant cousin.)

Crispy

Working in small batches, fry until golden around the edges, about 3 minutes. These suckers cook up fast!

Glamor shot to end the post. Sorry for the lack of close up, wanted to get these out to my guests hot!

Serve with plum sauce.

So what about you guys? What games are you watching this week?

Saturday looks to be all about the MSU-Wisconsin, Florida-Bama, Penn State-Iowa and Texas-OU, but really, heck with Texas after losing to UCLA last weekend.

Sunday, Ravens-Steelers, Washington-Philly, Chicago (luckiest goddamn team in the league right now) -Giants. Hoping Detroit wins against Green Bay, because man, the poor Lions just cannot get a break their way.

Anything else going on this weekend? We’ve got a pal who’s returning from a year of volunteer work in Darfur, so probably see him at some point. SOCIAL NETWORK is finally out. Anything else?

Clare, I’m surprised you haven’t had Zimas with Chambord in them. When we were underaged, we’d hang out at… Zelda’s? Hemmingways? One of those Pitt bars during the summer where we’d have them to drink. I believe they were called “Sparklers” if my memory is correct.

Also, you should make these for your mom. Super easy. My friends had them at their Polynesian wedding during the cocktail hour. How Buffalo chicken is is Polynesian, I do not know, but they were a big hit and I was craving them again right away.

Wontons are proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. In school the cafeteria was closed on Sundays and my roommate, myself and about 4 others would go to one of the local cheap-chinese places and gorge ourselves on crab wontons (locally referred to as rangoons). It’s amazing my lower GI

I cannot wait to make the Buffalo wontons for our next home football tailgate. Definitely added to my Super Bowl party menu.

Not sure if anyone is interested, but these wontons are yummy too: Nutella & Banana Wontons. I’ve been making these for a few years now as a fun dessert at parties. Rather than take up so much space by writing out the recipe here, i found this link online http://is.gd/fGSnj